


eighteen

by danslawdegree



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Drabble, M/M, Teen Dan, early phan, growing up is Confusing, mainly just dan waffling about life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 07:42:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16657033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danslawdegree/pseuds/danslawdegree
Summary: im in the middle without any plansim a boy and im a man





	eighteen

Dan looks in the mirror and thinks that he’s finally starting to look a little older.

 

There’s no specific wrinkles or lines that quite spell it out, obviously not, he’s only 18 but for once he’s certain there’s no longer a young boy staring back at him in the mirror.  
  


His brother had just turned 12 the other day and Dan could still vividly remember back when he was that age, feeling so grown up, almost a teenager and just straightening his hair for the first time.But Adrian still just looked like a kid, and it was almost shocking to him that an age he once felt so old at, he know lumped in with young children.  
  


Realistically, Dan knew he wasn’t all that old himself, hell he had only finished his final exams in school, but with that out of the way, all he had left was his leap year and then…  
  


Adulthood.  
  


Whatever that was going to mean. He was too sure yet. Dan itched to go into the arts, musical theatre, acting, something of that sort but he already knew his parents would never entertain the idea of something so ‘impractical’ and they had more than once brought up how useful it’d be for him to get a degree in law or business.  
  


Dan couldn’t entirely blame them. They weren’t exactly a poor family but they sure as hell didn’t have the money for him to waste his degree in something as vague as ‘the arts’.  
  


It hurt and he could see tears well up in his eyes from his reflection in the mirror, but it didn’t change that it was reality.  
  


Rubbing angrily at the tears forming in his eyes he turned from the bathroom and padded into his bedroom, hoping to stay quiet enough to avoid alerting his parents to his presence and having chores thrust towards him.  
  


Adrian and whatever little friend had had over downstairs laughed loudly and Dan had to resist the urge to open his door and tell them to shut up. Instead, he pulled his laptop out from underneath his bed and pulled up a recent AmazingPhil video.  
  


Phil, the subject of the YouTube video currently up on his screen, was sat on the floor of his uni dorm talking about his post-video production classes, and objectively it should be boring, but the editing and little skits he has thrown in leaves Dan grinning by the end of it.  
  


There’s always a slight feeling of fondness that washes over Dan after watching an AmazingPhil video. He had tweeted him quite a few times and got pleasant responses and earlier this week they had even exchanged phone numbers to text each other. Dan quite liked Phil.  
  


He made being creative seem not so stupid, made him feel less weird for wanting to be more dramatic and emotional than other other people around him, also comfortable with having ideas that his parents likely laugh at. There was something about Phil that seemed to almost 'normalize' weirdness, make it okay, something he rarely felt from the people around him.  
  


A loud, slightly too harsh, voice barks through the downstairs at Adrian telling him to settle down and Dan feels himself bristle slightly with protectiveness, despite having mirrored his father’s annoyance just minutes ago.  
  


He could picture Adrian sitting down there now, the laughter between him and his friend suddenly stilled and the awkward silence that follows from being the kid with the strict parents. Eventually Adrian would likely just stop bringing friends around much like Dan had.  
  


Dan wished he was little older, a little less dependent on his parents, because then he might go downstairs and ask his dad to but a bit easier on Adrian. Hell, maybe he could sit down with both his parents and admit that the thought of going into business or law or whatever it is they they want makes him feel an emotional he can only liken best to… Dying.  
  


But of course, they’d laugh if he did that. Tell him he’s dramatic. That he’s a kid and he just doesn't understand yet. Not to mention, they’d go off on how it’s their job to parent his little brother not his and well, if Dan thought he could do a better job, they’d like to see him try.  
  


Dan knows he’s not old enough for them to be wrong. As crazy as his parents drive him, there’s still that young need for his parents to hold some sort of divine truth or reason that may somehow make his own life eventually sense.  
  


And that was the awkwardness of the transition between being a boy and a man, honestly. He had no footing just yet but plenty of space to step, so to speak.  
  


Dan’s phone buzzes in his pocket and once he sees Phil’s ID flash up, he decides to focus on the strange, creative boy on hand, and after a just a few minutes of texting, he can here Adrian and his friend laughing just as loudly as before downstairs

**Author's Note:**

> i previously posted this on a diff account but i had lost of really old fanfiction on there and i wanted to start fresh
> 
> u can also find me on tumblr as danslawdegree 
> 
> oh- and obviously, this fic was heavily inspired by alice cooper's eighteen


End file.
